Afterimages
by Stormfire76
Summary: "The first time, Gansey had died alone. It was much more painful to die when others were watching, because then he had to watch them crack with the realization that he was gone." - Gansey's death, and what came after. Contains TRK spoilers.
1. burned by the sun

His second death was much more painful than the first had been, Gansey decided.

Well… not in the physical sense. Blue's kiss was gentle, soft, and completely unlike a hornet's sting, and dying had been like falling asleep. ( _Non mortem, somni fratrem,_ Gansey thought, even though that didn't really apply in this case.)

But the first time, Gansey had died alone. It was much more painful to die when others were watching, because then he had to watch them crack with the realization that he was gone.

Gansey couldn't hear what they were saying over the roaring wind in his ears, but he didn't need to. The anguish was smeared across Ronan's face (Ronan's _face_ , which meant that he wasn't unmade, which meant that the demon was dead, thank goodness) and spattered in Adam's empty eyes as they pulled his body onto the grass and left the car in the road and Henry hung back, glancing around like he'd find an answer in the blood on the street, and Orphan Girl hugged Adam's arm, and Ronan was crying and Gansey hadn't seen him like this since his father died, and it was his fault that he was this way now, and Blue was staring down at his body like the world had ended and she had no thoughts left, and Gansey tore his eyes away with an aching _I'm sorry_ and looked at the clouds instead.

He wondered, suddenly, if he would be able to see Noah now that they were the same. If he would be able to _help_ Noah, now that they were the same. But he spread his soul across the sky, reached out across Henrietta with the deepest thrum of his spirit heart, and he couldn't sense Noah anywhere. Right now, anyway. The past beat with a steady pulse just behind his ears, though — a past where Gansey was alive and Noah was decaying — and Gansey thought if he tilted his head in just the right way, he might be able to find it. But he wasn't quite sure if he wanted to.

Maybe Noah couldn't be sensed because he wasn't here anymore. _Maybe_ … Gansey tilted his head up and filled his eyes with the sky. Now that he was dead, it didn't burn his eyes to stare directly at the sun. Maybe it wouldn't burn him to go up there either. Maybe that was where Noah had gone.

 _Excelsior_ , thought Gansey suddenly, and he had just taken his first inch towards the sun when he felt something tug on his left ankle.

Surprised, Gansey glanced down, and a fresh wave of surprise filled him when he saw how far he'd risen above his found family, and also that there was a vine wrapped around his right foot.

Before he could do much more than stutter out a gasp, another vine shot up and twisted around his other leg, preventing him from reaching the sky. He was almost indignant until a third vine pulled at his arm, and then Gansey realized that he wasn't being kept from the sky so much as being tethered to his body. With vines, and magic.

 _Cabeswater,_ he thought with a jolt, and then, _What did they do?_

The vines yanked at him insistently, dragging him away from the sun, and now when Gansey glanced up at it again, the brightness was uncomfortable. Which didn't make any sense, unless he was going to live again.

Was he going to live again?

He was going to

Was he

 _Wake up._

Gansey rocketed into his body and opened his eyes.

The sunlight burned his retinas.

" _GANSEY!_ "

Blue flung her arms around his neck, and it was a lot of _LIFE, LIFE, LIFE_ , all at once. Gansey gasped and spluttered and tried to remember how to breathe.

"You fucking asshole," Ronan said. "I can't believe you fucking…" But for perhaps the first time in Gansey's memory, Ronan didn't finish a curse. He just glared at Gansey with shining eyes and a smile that looked like Ronan was trying to remember how to breathe too.

"How did you—" Gansey struggled to sit up. Blue stopped hugging him, but she didn't let go of his hand. Gansey didn't want her to. He had a nagging feeling that if she did, this blissful moment of _LIFE, LIFE, LIFE_ would end and he'd float away again. But as it was, the feeling of her fingers in his helped him refocus and finish his question. "How did you do that?"

"It was Cabeswater," Adam explained. The scratches on his face ripped at Gansey's stomach, but the relief in his eyes meant that Adam didn't mind the scratches nearly as much as Gansey did. "It remade you."

"How?"

"It used itself," Ronan answered for Adam, his voice gruff.

Gansey's eyes widened. "It used _itself_? But, Ronan, you've already lost so many dreams."

Ronan refused to look remorseful. "You asked me to dream you the world once." He spread his arms wide, gesturing at the forest and the grass and his BMW and the sky, too, and the sun. "Now you have it."

After that, Gansey didn't have anything to say. He just gaped at all of them, all of the marvelous creatures that he was lucky enough to consider his friends, and tried to adjust to the revelation that there was no more Glendower, no more demon, no more imminent sacrifice.

He was allowed to live for himself now.

* * *

 **To anyone reading this who has never read one of my fics before: Hello and welcome! I'm not on this website much, but I still adore getting reviews and respond to both reviews and PMs, so feel free to review if you like this fic because I need validation lol.**

 **To anyone who read my pjo fics and was probably wondering if I had vanished off the face of the earth: Hello! I did not vanish off the face of the earth, but I have been gone long enough that all my docs have been deleted from docs manager (and i don't think i had all of those saved on my computer oops). Sorry? I'm just not super interested in writing pjo fic and** **now write and post things pretty exclusively for other fandoms and on ao3. But I do still exist, and I still love getting reviews and PMs, and I'll probably keep posting things on here every once in a while. (Like this fic haha.)**

 **I'm also on tumblr ( actuallymollyweasley) and have an ao3 account (sunshineinthestorm) if you'd rather talk to me through those. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	2. smoke in the air

**To clarify, this will be a series of indeterminate length about the time between Gansey's death and the end of trk, just because I need more time in the world of these raven dorks that I love so much. New chapters will be sporadically posted, canonically accurate, mostly chronological, and probably full of feelings. There will hopefully be more happy chapters than angsty ones, but there will definitely be angst.**

* * *

Blue called 300 Fox Way as soon as they piled into Ronan's BMW — all except for Henry Cheng, who took one look at all of them and told them (with a shaky voice trying for a joke and slipping) that they could have today, and he'd become best friends with all of them tomorrow. They tried to protest, but Blue couldn't help feeling grateful that he left in his own car. She was starting to really like Henry, and she could see him one day becoming another raven boy that she was just a little in love with, but this was their ache. Henry had never even seen Cabeswater. He didn't know just how long Blue had feared Gansey's death. He couldn't fully understand what they were mourning.

Blue's mom understood. The voice on the other end of Ronan's phone was concerned and fearful, murmuring decades of comfort into a single word. " _Blue_."

It was too much. Blue broke down with the tears that hadn't come when Gansey had actually been dead. Next to her, Gansey pressed deliberately against her thigh and cupped her knee with his hand, shouting _I'm here I'm here I'm here_ with the pressure of his fingers. Blue nodded at him and swallowed hard before the women of 300 Fox Way could dissolve into total panic.

"He's okay," she choked out, and she could hear the entire house sigh in relief on the other end of the line. "I — I kissed him, and… but he's okay now. And the demon is gone."

She could hear Maura's smile in the way she shaped her vowels. "Oh, Blue. You're going to have life after, and now you're even going to be able to enjoy it."

Blue did her best to laugh. "Yeah." She closed her eyes to focus on Gansey, alive and real and touching her. "Um… I don't really want to talk over the phone. I just wanted to let you know the important stuff. I… I'll see you soon."

"Absolutely. We love you, Blue."

The line went silent — which was what Blue wanted, but it still tugged at her insides. Gansey's fingers tightened almost imperceptibly against her skin. "We can go to your house first, Jane," he said softly. "I'm sure you want to see your family."

Blue's eyes flicked to the phone in Gansey's lap, which was still vibrating every few minutes with fresh accusatory messages, messages that Gansey hadn't answered because he didn't know how. "We're going to where your parents and sister are staying first," she insisted, tangling her fingers in Gansey's so he wouldn't try to argue with her. "My mom knows what matters. The rest can wait."

"But—"

"Jesus Christ, Gansey, let her have this one," Ronan said loudly from the driver's seat. Blue suspected that the volume was meant to keep his voice from cracking, although she knew she would never ask him about it. "Sargent is right."

Gansey almost smiled. "Never thought I'd hear you two agree on something."

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Ronan swerved into a rest area with no warning and parked the car. "Fuck it," he said. "Parrish, you drive. I'm tired of being up here." _Up here by myself_ , Blue knew he meant, since the passenger seat (usually a seat of contention and conflict) was remarkably empty. On any other day, it would have been unusual, but today, it was just that no one really wanted to stop touching Gansey, in case he vanished. Ronan had been driving for over an hour with only common sense to remind him that Gansey was alive, and common sense wasn't worth a thing in Henrietta anymore. Blue felt a sharp stab of guilt in her chest.

"I can drive," she offered, even though the idea of letting go of Gansey's hand made her heart hurt. "You don't have to move, Adam."

"Like hell he doesn't," Ronan said roughly. "We want to get back in town sometime today, Sargent."

Adam gave her a tight smile and pulled Gansey into a sudden, unexpected hug before clambering out of the BMW. He met Ronan right in front of the windshield. All they did was brush fingertips for an instant, but when Adam sat behind the wheel, and Ronan settled next to Gansey without saying a word, both of them looked a little more grounded.

Seeing them comfortable together loosened the knot in Blue's chest for the first time. It almost made her feel okay as all of them hurtled towards the source of the anxiety that Gansey was doing his best to conceal.

* * *

"Where have you been, Dick?"

Gansey's mom asked the question with only the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice, and to Blue, it was worse than the unfettered anger Calla had confronted her with when she'd gone off to Jesse Dittley's house. At least Blue always knew exactly how her family felt when they spoke to her — they didn't disguise their anger any more than they disguised their happiness. She thought it must be exhausting, living in a family that tiptoed around real emotions and genuine conversations. The smiling Richard Campbell Gansey III mask that Gansey so often displayed made a little more sense to her now.

Right now, though, he was a coil of tension next to Blue. "I'm sorry for missing the fundraiser," he said softly.

"It's not just the fundraiser," Helen answered, glaring at him. Blue saw that she wasn't like the Gansey parents — she wasn't afraid to use real anger when she felt it. "You've been gone for an entire _day_ , Gansey. Why didn't you answer your phone? I know you're obsessed with finding your Welsh king, but I thought we mattered to you too — at least a little."

Gansey closed his eyes and swayed slightly. "I'm s—" he started again, and in that instant, Blue realized that Gansey was just planning to stand there and take their scolding, adding their disappointment to the mountain of pain piled onto his shoulders without a word of protest. He was never going to tell them the truth, in case it hurt them as much as it hurt him. She didn't understand it, but that was Gansey. She didn't know what she could do except close her eyes too and let the guilt sweep through her.

Then Ronan Lynch stepped in front of Gansey before he could finish apologizing. "Gansey went out on a hunch last night, looking for Glendower," Ronan announced. "The hunch took him up into the mountains, but he wasn't that far away. He wasn't planning on missing your fundraiser. But his piece of shit car broke down just as his phone died, getting him stuck in the middle of nowhere, and none of us knew it until this morning. We didn't find him until a few hours ago, and then while Adam was trying to fix the Pig and I was in the woods looking for cell phone reception, these fucking thugs showed up and pretended to offer their help before robbing them instead. Might have fucking killed everyone if I hadn't come back in time. I scared them off." Ronan showed off a dangerous grin that seemed at odds with the worry that he didn't bother to hide as his eyes slid to Gansey. "Anyway, we finally got the Pig up and running again, but it broke down again just outside town and we decided we just had to fucking leave it and come here in my car instead before you sent out a police caravan or something."

By the time he was finished, Gansey was staring at Ronan with wide eyes and parted lips. Actually, Blue was pretty sure they were all gaping at Ronan. His story was the perfect lie, full of just enough details and Ronan-esque swears to reek of truth, accounting for any questions that might have arisen about the blood on Blue's face and the scratches on Adam's, and immediately activating Gansey's parents' sympathies.

Blue couldn't believe _Ronan_ , of all people, had lied for Gansey. Except maybe she could. When it came to Gansey, Ronan had already given up things like dreams and nights of sleep and magical forests. They all had. That was the magic that Gansey had. Compared to all of that, it shouldn't have surprised her that Ronan would give up his honesty for Gansey too.

Before she could think about that any further, Gansey's mom stumbled forward and grasped Gansey's shoulders, looking at him with fear untainted by doubt. Improbable as the explanation was, there was no reason to doubt a story told by a boy whose only widely-known virtue was his refusal to lie. "Why didn't you just tell us, Dick?" she asked, furrowing her perfect campaign eyebrows. "Why would you let us be angry with you for something that wasn't your fault?"

"I didn't want to worry you," Gansey said, and it still hurt Blue, seeing how much his aura of confidence had crumbled over the last day, knowing it was her fault.

"You should let us worry. You could have been seriously hurt!" Mrs. Gansey leaned away from Gansey to inspect Henry's smudged Aglionby sweater and Gansey's stained shirtsleeves. " _Are_ you hurt?"

"No," Gansey whispered, and Blue knew that Mrs. Gansey knew that it was a lie. He didn't have blood covering him like Blue and Adam, but all of Gansey's previous experience in crafting façades had failed him today. Without it, the hollow ache in his eyes and the pallor of his skin was impossible to hide. Blue couldn't believe that his parents hadn't picked up on it the second that they'd opened the door and seen Gansey on the front stoop, but she supposed that anger had a way of clouding most people's observational skills.

Richard Campbell Gansey II cleared his throat. "Dick, you know that we've always encouraged you to pursue your interests. But if searching for Glendower is going to get you stranded in the mountains and attacked by robbers, then… it might not be the best interest for you to pursue."

At the mention of _Glendower_ , Gansey let out a shuddering breath and glanced at Ronan, Adam, and Blue for strength. Ronan and Adam nodded. Blue closed her fingers around his. Gansey was still looking at their hands when he said, "Don't worry. I've decided that it's time to stop chasing Glendower. Some things are better left to rest."

He didn't tell them that he'd already found Glendower, and Blue thought she knew why. _Some things are better left to rest._ There was no point in proclaiming the discovery of a magical tomb that had lost all its magic. It wasn't a victory. It was reality, a reality that they had no interest in exposing to a world better left in ignorance.

Helen looked sharply at Gansey when he spoke, and then her eyes softened.

Until now, Blue had forgotten that Gansey's family loved him too. It was easy to forget that when they all skirted around genuine emotions with the practice of seasoned politicians. But when Helen walked forward and wrapped her arms around Gansey, letting him shake apart against her shoulder, Blue remembered again. It made her want to cry again, the relief that there were other people in the world who loved Gansey too. She had a feeling he was going to need them all.

"I'm sorry, Gansey," Helen said gently, ruffling Gansey's hair. "I know how much Glendower meant to you."

"It's okay," Gansey said, even though it wasn't. He looked at his parents carefully. "Would you mind… Is it all right if I go back to Monmouth? I miss home."

He winced, like he was worried he'd offended them, but his parents just nodded. "Of course, Dick," his mom said soothingly. "Do you want us to hire a tow truck to bring the Camaro to a garage?"

"Don't worry about it, ma'am." Adam had been following the entire exchange with a look on his face that Blue hadn't been able to read, but when he finally spoke, his voice didn't waver. "I'll take care of the Pig."

Mrs. Gansey smiled somewhat helplessly. "That's very kind of you, Adam." She looked at Gansey, who had disentangled himself from Helen and now wouldn't quite look at anyone. "Let us know if you need anything at all, dear," she said with the air of someone who wasn't used to being helpless. "We'll call to check in later."

Gansey gave her a smile that was beautiful in its fraudulence. "Thank you, Mom." Then, abruptly, he turned and left. With one last hesitant look at Gansey's family, Blue and the rest of her raven boys followed him.

In the car, Gansey threw himself forcefully into the passenger seat and turned to look at Ronan as soon as he slid in. "Why would you do that?" he demanded. "I didn't want you to lie for me."

"Come on, man," Ronan said with purposeful carelessness. "You can't tell me that you aren't glad I did."

Gansey flexed his fingers against his lap. "You've already given up too many things for me. You shouldn't have given that up too."

Ronan looked hard at Gansey and shook his head before shoving his keys into the ignition and leaning back against the headrest. "It wasn't really a lie," he said finally. "You went after Glendower. We didn't find you until much later. Your phone died. The Pig broke down just outside town. And you can't think about what happened today and tell me that we weren't robbed of fucking _everything_." He turned the keys and yanked the BMW into gear with more force than was strictly necessary. "I just talked about the magic stuff with non-magic words."

It was a stretch — they all knew it, but none of them called Ronan out on it, so he pulled out of the driveway with only the sound of squealing tires to punctuate the silence. It wasn't until he drove into the parking lot of Monmouth Manufacturing that he turned back to Gansey and said, "Besides. Staying silent would have been a lie too."

Gansey didn't say anything. But he pulled Ronan into a hug over the center console and cried, and they all knew that he was grateful.


	3. non mortem, somni fratrem

**Warning: There's mild body horror in Ronan's dream in this chapter, but nothing worse than what's in canon.**

* * *

It was impossible for Ronan to remember how beautiful Cabeswater was when he wasn't standing in it. Something about the jeweled shimmer of its leaves and the precise sound his feet made when he crunched along a path was lost in its translation to memory, which frustrated Ronan in the same way he was frustrated when he read a Latin passage that was impossible to capture in English.

But he was standing in Cabeswater now, and he remembered all over again.

He almost couldn't bear it, the brush of a tree's bark against his fingertips, the glow of sunlight filtering through the canopy, the haunting distant call of a bird Ronan couldn't name. The rest of reality was trapped in a dusky and unpredictable fall, but here, Ronan basked in the smell of impending summer. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was flawless, except that it felt strange to be here alone. He hadn't been alone here for a long time. There was always Adam, and Gansey, and Noah and Blue, and even Orphan Girl if no one else. It pricked at the walls of his stomach, being here alone. But Ronan wasn't too worried about it, really, because he was on his way to a very specific clearing, and his mother was waiting there and he couldn't wait to—

The knowledge that Aurora was dead slammed into him with the force of a thousand night horrors, and with it came the knowledge that Ronan was in a dream. The needles in his stomach sharpened to daggers, and Ronan burned with the terrifying realization that he hadn't known he was dreaming, he hadn't known, and hadn't he once told Adam that he was supposed to know when he was dreaming and when he was awake, wasn't that part of being the Greywaren?

The sound of a branch snapping overhead reached Ronan's ears, and he jumped backwards just before the branch smacked into the ground where he'd stood. It was rotted and oozing black sludge, and Ronan felt like he was about to throw up. Fear cropped up again, an aching demanding consuming fear that pounded in his chest alongside his heart, and against his better judgment, Ronan looked up.

" _Gansey_?"

And it was.

He was sitting in the tree with the freshly broken branch, looking as bemused by his existence as Ronan felt. "Ronan," Gansey said, voice tilting between scholarly Gansey and kingly Gansey. "Why is this tree dying?"

Shaking, Ronan reached out a hand to touch the bark of the rotting tree, and knowledge skidded into him again, raw and angry and terrible. The trees whispered it in English, just in case he didn't get the message in Latin. _Demon demon demon._ Ronan's eyes widened, and he stumbled back and looked up at Gansey again. "You have to get out of there!" he shouted, his voice hoarse and unconvincing. Nothing like Gansey's. He didn't know how to make it like Gansey's. He didn't know how to get Gansey to listen to him. "Cabeswater isn't safe anymore. It's dying, and it's all because—"

Then the branch under Gansey snapped too, and Gansey hit the ground with a thud that was a thousand times worse than the sound the branch made. It was even a thousand times worse than the groan the tree made as it twisted into itself, black sap leaking out of every crevice, bark shedding like dead skin, until it finally twisted into itself so much that it disappeared.

Ronan's ears popped. _Unmade._

He surged towards Gansey then, desperate to fling him out of Cabeswater before it was too late, but it was already too late. Gansey turned to look at him, but he no longer had eyes. His face was a blank slate of black and white lines, twitching and shifting in a way that told Ronan there was nothing he could do about them. The remnant of Gansey's face made a noise before seeming to realize that he had no mouth and therefore could not form words. All that was left was a high-pitched whine, barely noticeable at the edge of Ronan's consciousness, that seemed to emanate from the spot where Gansey's face used to be.

Ronan dropped to his knees, breaking and broken, vaguely aware of the hoarse scream that tore out of his mouth as he watched Gansey shudder and tear and collapse into nothing. His closest friend, his brother, his best tether to survival and humanity and the future and all the things Gansey had wanted for him, shook apart in front of him, but the high-pitched whine remained, a cruel irony that mocked him as it shifted from the edge of his consciousness to its aching center, strong and insistent and unstoppable. And then Ronan was being unmade too, and he couldn't even bring himself to care. He watched with a sort of detached fascination as his skin split open and black sap found its way through the cracks, dark and glaring and thicker than blood. The high-pitched noise condensed into a sharp point that drilled into his forehead. Just as Ronan thought that the noise would pierce through his skull, it lost form and turned into words.

"Ronan! _Ronan! RONAN FUCKING LYNCH, WAKE THE FUCK UP!_ "

Ronan woke up frozen, like this had been the same as any other dream.

It had not felt the same as any other dream.

Ronan watched from above as Adam hovered over him, some sort of fabric in his hands as he scrubbed at the black ooze that Ronan had brought back with him. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, unable to soothe Adam's anxiety, before he felt a tug and slammed back into his body. Aching from head to toe had never felt so good. It was a firm reassurance that he was alive, alive, alive, and his arms were still there and his face was still there and he hadn't been reduced to a blur of white and black lines.

"Hey," Ronan said weakly, because nothing seemed adequate.

Adam's scrubbing slowed and then stopped. "This is the same stuff that leaked out of that tree in Cabeswater," he said, his voice low and shaking. "That came out of _you_ yesterday. I thought we were done with the demon. I thought—"

"We are done," Ronan said, and when Adam looked incredulous, Ronan wrapped his fingers around Adam's wrist and held on tight. "We _are,_ okay? This"—he gestured at the ooze on Adam's cloth—"is because of my own demons, not Cabeswater's. That demon is gone."

Adam exhaled slowly. "Okay," he said. "Okay." He didn't try to peel Ronan's fingers off him. Ronan wasn't sure he would have let him.

Ronan glanced over at Chainsaw's cage, mostly for something to do with his eyes. Adam's were too blue; looking into them was distracting. "I dreamed about Cabeswater," he said.

Adam was too casual when he asked, "And?"

Ronan's eyes flicked to his own arm. His wristbands were covered in black sludge, but it hadn't cracked his skin open like it had in his dream. That was something. His voice was too casual when he said, "Be glad this shit was the only stuff I brought back with me."

But of course he hadn't brought back Gansey, or the thing that had looked like Gansey. He couldn't bring back an object that had been torn out of existence.

At the thought, Ronan pulled himself into a seated position, still aching all over. His skin may not have split, but it still felt like it had. His body was a single scream of protest. _Alive,_ he reminded himself, and stood. "Have you seen Gansey yet?"

Adam frowned. "No. I was a little distracted by all"—he made a vague gesture with the dirty cloth—"this."

A knot of worry formed in Ronan's chest, hard and irrational. "I'm going to go see him." _To make sure he's still alive._

Adam clenched the dirty cloth in his fist, and then let it drop to the ground with a sigh. "Me too."

They stepped into the main room of Monmouth, and Gansey was asleep.

But it wasn't the calm, restful kind of sleep that Ronan had seen Adam enjoy once or twice. (Or three times. Or… it was just nice to see sleep that didn't end in night horrors and impossible objects. And he almost always woke up before Adam did anyway.)

It was the kind of sleep that ended in tangled covers and thrashing and Blue on the floor beside Gansey's bed, holding his hand and shouting his name and trying to avoid getting decked by a rebellious elbow. Ronan probably would have heard them sooner if his head wasn't still filled with the high-pitched whine that he now recognized as dread. Ignoring his stiff limbs, Ronan let go of Adam's wrist and strode forward and held down Gansey's legs and leaned over and yelled _WAKE UP, YOU ASSHOLE_ into his ear until he did.

Then Ronan had to sit down, because his head was ringing. But he made sure to sit down with attitude, arm with the wristbands flung carelessly over his left knee and his right leg sprawled on the ground, because Gansey wasn't used to nightmares like Ronan was, and he was the one who needed to be the focus of attention right now.

The focus of attention was currently blinking at them like he thought he was still dreaming. Blue laid her hand on his knee, and Ronan felt a fierce, unexpected stab of joy at seeing them openly together. They deserved some damn happiness for once. He hoped they would get it. "You're okay, Gansey," Blue said quietly.

Gansey smiled at them, and if Ronan didn't know him so well, it would have been convincing. "Of course I'm okay, Jane," he said. "It was just a dream."

"Dreams aren't _just_ anything," Adam said before Ronan could. "Do you"—his eyes flicked to Blue's hand on Gansey's knee, and Ronan was relieved to see that he didn't look jealous—"want to talk about it?"

"Nothing to talk about," Gansey said breezily. "I'm just going to go shower, and then… gelato for breakfast?"

Blue flinched at the word _gelato_ , and everyone noticed. "What?" Adam said. "What happened?"

Blue fidgeted with the edge of her fraying crocheted sweater. "I called my house last night after you all went to sleep. Calla came and picked me up."

Gansey's eyebrows furrowed. "We could have dropped you off. Why didn't you say that you wanted to go home?"

"Because I wanted to be here too," Blue said, like it was obvious. "Anyway, Calla brought me home, and I thought almost everyone would be asleep already, but they were all still awake and sitting in the kitchen, and I came in and my mom told me . . . Noah started staying at 300 Fox Way a few days ago, you know. I think he needed the extra energy. But yesterday, around the time that Gansey . . ." She swallowed hard and focused on the stitching along her sleeve. "Noah disappeared."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Ronan plucked at his wristbands and said, "Fuck that. Noah disappears all the time. That doesn't mean anything."

"Yes, it does," Blue said, and her voice was so quiet. Blue wasn't supposed to be quiet. She was supposed to be loud, like Ronan. Harsh, like Ronan. Unapologetic, like Ronan. The daggers reappeared in Ronan's stomach. "My mom says he was in the reading room, halfway there and halfway not, when all of a sudden he kind of . . . froze. And then he looked at something my mom couldn't see, and then he said. . . ." She sucked in a deep breath. " _You will live because of Glendower. Someone else is dying on the ley line when they should not, and so you will live when you should not._ "

Next to her, Gansey went very still. " _He said_ ," and the words came out in a shudder. Gansey shook his head and tried again, but his voice still didn't quite make it to kingly Gansey like Ronan wanted it to. "He said he hadn't heard those words when he'd died. And I guess he hadn't. But — but — oh. Time is circular." Gansey buried his face in his hands, and it was the cave full of hornets, it was Glendower turned to dust, it was Gansey's hope brought to ruins. "That was Noah's voice. Why didn't I notice that it was Noah's voice? I've talked to him enough times. I've — I've — Jesus Christ. Jesus _Christ_."

Adam looked very dusty in the middle of the room, staring at them like he couldn't process what was happening. Blue looked like she wanted to comfort Gansey, but couldn't because she needed comfort too, and wouldn't have known how even if she'd had the strength. Ronan probably looked like he was shattered, only because everyone else was also so shattered that there was no point in hiding it. "That isn't all he said," Blue added, voice shaking. "He also said, 'Good-bye. Don't throw it away.' And then he was gone. Totally gone, instantly gone, like . . . like there was no energy left. They don't think he's coming back."

Gansey lifted his head out of his hands to look at Ronan, and Ronan was startled at the stark pain in his eyes. This was — this was — no. Gansey was _alive_. Things shouldn't feel like this.

"He said that to me once," Gansey said. "That time a wasp got in here, and I couldn't move to kill it. Remember?" _How could I forget?_ But Gansey didn't wait for an answer. "'Don't throw it away.' He said that. And now he's . . ." Gansey trailed off as his eyes found the wristbands that Ronan was still pulling at furiously. "Wait. Wait. What is that black — is that — ?"

Ronan let go of the wristbands. "It's nothing."

Gansey fixed him with a steely glare, and kingly Gansey was back like he'd never left. "It's not nothing, Lynch. Where did that come from?"

"Where does any of my weird shit come from?" Ronan said. "My dreams, obviously."

Concern wiped away Gansey's anger in an instant, and Ronan hated it. "Ronan," he said slowly. "Are _you_ okay?"

Ronan stood unsteadily, but he made up for it by crossing his arms and looking right into Gansey's eyes without flinching. He couldn't say it was okay — he couldn't lie again. But he could say, "It's fucking nothing, Gansey. It's fucking bullshit, just like this fucking bullshit that Noah's never coming back and my mom is dead and Cabeswater's gone and you almost were too. It's all fucking bullshit."

He stormed into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry with his tattoo pointed backwards at them like a warning. For an instant, he considered yanking beers from the fridge and downing them until he felt numb, but eventually he just pounded his fist into the wall and got into the shower.

By the time he finished scrubbing the black shit from his skin, someone had dumped a pile of clean clothes on the toilet seat and flung his leather jacket over the sink. Probably fucking Gansey again. Ronan took a deep breath, pulled on the clothes, and punched the wall again for good measure. Then he stepped back into the main room and leaned against the doorjamb, acting like he didn't know that they'd all probably heard him punch the wall and curse in the shower. Monmouth's walls weren't that thick.

"Look," he said. "It's all fucking bullshit. So let's get gelato for breakfast."

Gansey blinked. "Just like that?"

"Yeah." Ronan twisted his wristbands, wet from the shower, and felt Chainsaw land on his shoulder with a gentle _kerah._ He wondered, idly, if Adam had let her out. "Noah'd think it was hilarious."

Blue blinked at him too, and then she laughed, sharp and surprised, like she knew exactly what Ronan was doing but was willing to go along with it. "Well," she said, "it is kind of hilarious."

So they did.

* * *

 **Feel free to review if you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading!**


	4. it's our time now if you want it to be

**Listen I just want my kids to Talk About Things and Be Happy okay?**

 **Chapter title is from The Kids Aren't Alright by Fall Out Boy, which is so Gangsey that it hurts.**

 **P.S. in case it wasn't clear, I obviously do not own the characters or world of the incredible Raven Cycle series. That honor belongs to the genius car nerd known as Maggie Stiefvater.**

* * *

Gansey was glad he'd called Henry and invited him to eat gelato for breakfast with them. After the revelations of that morning, it was a relief to slide into a booth that was already full to bursting with the force of Henry's exuberance. It was a relief not to have to talk because Henry filled all the silences. It was a relief to simply scrape at the gelato in his bowl and smile quietly while Henry leaned over the table, regaling them with stories about the various devious ways he'd utilized RoboBee to its fullest potential.

"And _then_ ," he finished triumphantly, "I had RoboBee steal Cheng Two's boxers while he was in the shower and drape them over the ceiling fan in the kitchen. He had to run around in his towel for _three hours_ before he finally found them."

Blue squinted at him with her good eye. Her other eye was squinting anyway. "Why didn't he just get a different pair of boxers?"

Henry grinned. "My dear lady, you obviously did not spend enough time at Litchfield House during our magnificent toga party. I cannot remember the last moment that Cheng Two possessed more than a single pair of clean boxers and one dubiously pressed uniform shirt at a time."

Blue's mouth twitched. "Now that you mention it, he did smell a little strange. I figured it was the toga."

"It was not the toga," Henry announced. "It was the fact that RoboBee stole his current pair of clean boxers five days ago, Litchfield Laundry Day is tomorrow, and Cheng Two is incapable of working a washing machine without assistance."

Blue's mouth twitched again. "And you are?"

Henry gasped at her, alarmed and aghast. "Blue Sargent, I thought we were _friends._ Surely my _friends_ know that I would never allow my Madonna t-shirt to wallow in a dirty pile of laundry for days at a time. My clothing must always match the crisp perfection of my hair."

"Ah, I see." Blue nodded sagely. "Whereas Cheng Two—"

"His hair," Henry said, "is sadly incapable of attaining crisp perfection."

"Good thing too," Adam mused, "or it would be taller than yours."

This was apparently something Henry hadn't yet considered. He gaped at Adam with such open horror that Ronan choked on his gelato.

Orphan Girl snapped her head up at the sound. Her gelato was untouched, but the handle of a silver spoon dangled out of her mouth. Gansey was pretty sure he'd seen her eat the lid of their salt shaker earlier. He made a mental note to leave an extra-large tip for their waitress, and then he watched as Orphan Girl offered her spoon handle to Ronan, dripping with saliva. The top of the spoon had definitely been chewed off. The sight of it just made Ronan choke harder. Adam thumped a hand against his back, trying his best to look resigned but ending up amused instead. Eventually, Ronan stopped choking, and then he saw Henry — who was currently measuring the height of his hair between his index finger and thumb and frowning at the result — and started laughing instead.

This was a relief too — hearing Ronan laugh. After the events of the past few days, Gansey had been rather worried he would forget how.

As they finished off their dubiously-nutritious breakfast, Blue announced that she wanted to return to 300 Fox Way, and the rest of them agreed to follow. The rest of them except for Henry, anyway. Henry signed his check with a generous flourish and then launched himself out of his chair, glancing at Gansey with a question in the way he quirked his eyebrows. Gansey barely had time to open his mouth before Blue rolled her eyes at Henry and looped her arm through his elbow as if to say, _Like I'd let you get out of this so easily._ Gansey looked at them and smiled. His smile only widened when he looked past Henry and Blue and saw Ronan casually dropping an arm over Adam's shoulders, and Adam letting him. Nothing was right in the world, except this.

And 300 Fox Way. Blue's house was filled with that same sense of rightness, a feeling that enveloped Gansey as soon as he stepped inside. Jimi and Orla had come back as soon as they'd heard the news, and between their arrival and the smell of one of Maura's strange teas steeping and Ronan and Adam and Henry and Orphan Girl doing something absurd in the backyard and Blue holding Gansey's hand in the kitchen, the house felt almost full again. He felt like he could live in this room, in this moment, in this house, one day, or like he already had, and for once the feeling of time slipping didn't scare him. It was normal. It was almost . . . safe.

"I think," Gansey said, and then he didn't finish.

Blue squeezed his hand. "What?"

"I think it's okay if Ronan doesn't want to go back to school."

Gansey could see from her raised eyebrow that it was not what Blue had expected him to say, but she took it in stride. "Why now?"

"Because . . ." Gansey hesitated, gathering his thoughts. He wanted to articulate this properly before he brought it up with Ronan, and he had a feeling Blue understood that. She sucked yogurt off her spoon while she waited for him to finish. "There is too much magic in the world, and Ronan has so much of it. He even has the Barns now. It isn't fair of me to ask him to go back to Aglionby when he has a raven and an orphan girl and a home already. He doesn't need Aglionby."

Blue eyed him carefully. "Well," she said, " _I_ think it's up to Ronan, and it's always been up to Ronan. I think you should really be talking about this with him. And I think that isn't really what you wanted to say."

Gansey blinked at her. Even after everything, it was still hard for him to remember that he was known, sometimes. "Do you think we can come back from this?"

And there it was, out in the open.

More words rushed out of him before Blue could answer him. "It's just that you've been scarred by a demon, and Adam learned what it feels like to lose control of your own body when his free will is what's most important to him, and he lost his magic, and Ronan lost his mother and his forest and almost his goddamn soul and Glendower is dead and—"

He cut himself off abruptly.

Blue set her spoon down on the counter. "You can say it, you know."

Gansey heaved a ragged breath. "What?"

"You can be afraid for yourself, as well as everyone else," Blue said simply. "You can worry about all of us and still be hurting. You're allowed."

 _You're allowed._

"But all of you have had so much worse."

Blue frowned. "Gansey. Grief isn't a competition." Then she pulled him into a hug before Gansey quite knew what was happening. "And anyway," she said into his shoulder, "even if it was, you wouldn't be losing."

Gansey was acutely aware of the way her fingers felt against his ribs. Her hair smelled of mint and sharpness and spring, all at once. He spoke into that hair. It felt safer than melting into her touch. "But that'd be selfish. I can't be allowed to mourn for myself."

"You _are_ ," Blue said fiercely. "You _are_."

And somehow Gansey believed her, and then he melted into her touch after all, and nothing was right in the world, except this. "It's just that I don't know where to go from here," he admitted, the jagged edge of his voice lost in the tufts of that sharp minty spring hair. "I spent the last seven years with a single purpose, and now that purpose is dead, and I never expected it to matter because I always figured I would be too. And now I'm not."

Blue inhaled sharply. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"No! No, of course not. It's just that I've lived the last several months trying to make sure that you all would be okay after I died. I . . . did things. I made preparations. I wrote . . . I wrote letters." The words were knives on his tongue, and he felt bad for giving them to Blue. "But now Noah is gone, and Cabeswater is gone, and I'm still here, and I spent so long getting ready to die that I don't remember what living is like. I . . . I keep thinking this is a dream, and all of this will be taken away again."

Blue held him tightly, and he held on just as hard. Sunlight slanted through the kitchen window, making Gansey feel like his skin was on fire. When he pressed his face against the top of her head, it pushed his glasses out of place. They dug into the bridge of his nose. Gansey focused on that — on how _real_ it was — and tried to remind himself. _This is not a dream. You are not Ronan. You are not dreaming. You are alive._

Eventually, Blue pulled back, but only far enough for her to look into his eyes appraisingly and run her fingers through his hair. "Well." She paused. "You're the one who suggested gelato for breakfast."

"So?"

"So that's living. That's how you know this isn't a dream. You don't have to plan your whole life out today. You can do whatever you want. You can eat gelato for breakfast and pizza for dessert. You could sell the Pig and move to New Zealand. You could bring the Pig to New Zealand with you. You could join Ronan the next time he pulls some stupid stunt." Blue spread her arms out wide and grinned at him. "You could hike to Zimbabwe with me and Henry."

"Zimbabwe?"

"Henry says we could do Venezuela on the way."

And suddenly, the future was possible. "Blue Sargent, I could kiss you."

And just like that, the future was impossible again. Blue's arms dropped. She looked at him with something close to panic, and Gansey's eyebrows furrowed. "What's wrong?"

Her breath came out in a shudder. "You could do anything but that."

Gansey's stomach settled somewhere near his shoes. "But I thought—"

"I want to," Blue interrupted, voice tinged with exasperation or anger or longing. "But the curse said that if I kissed my true love, he would die. It did not say that if I kissed my true love again, he would not die. And you've already died twice, and I've run out of things to sacrifice."

The sunlight cast strange shadows on her face, and Maura's strange tea filled the air with its strange scent, but Blue was unwaveringly sensible anyway, because of or in spite of the strangeness. In a world of magic and impossibilities, Blue had the presence of mind to wonder if her curse had an expiration date. And Gansey loved her, he loved her, he loved her for it.

And now that he was alive, he saw no reason not to say it. "Jane," he said firmly, "I love you."

Air hissed out of Blue in something close to a laugh. She stared at him, and then laughed again. And then she said, "Jane?"

Gansey brushed away a tuft of Blue's wild hair. It immediately fell back into place, covering three of the stitches over her eye. "Blue," he said. "Jane. Blue Jane Blue Jane. I love you." He let his fingers cup her cheek. _You're allowed._ "You're right," he told her. "We can wait. And on the next St. Mark's Eve, you can go to the church with Maura and watch and wait some more. And when my spirit isn't there, you'll know it's all right."

Now Blue smiled, and the strange shadows danced on that smile instead of dulling it. " _When_ it's not there?"

Gansey nodded. He had been afraid for too long. "You're not really human," he told her, matter-of-fact. "But neither am I, anymore. Not really. I think we'll be all right. But," he added, "I would rather not risk it."

Blue nodded back at him. "Me neither. If this really is a dream, I don't want it to be taken away."

Gansey took her hands. "This is not a dream," he insisted, with intention. "We are not Ronan, and so this is not a dream."

Blue nodded again and then rested her forehead against his. She was still smiling, and for a moment the world was full of beauty and color and possibility and things that weren't death. In spite of all the magic he'd seen, that might have been what awed Gansey the most. "In a few months, we'll know for sure," she said. "And until then, we can still pretend."

Gansey lifted her hands and pressed them against his cheek, leaning into the feel of her skin. "We can pretend," he agreed.

The last few months had been agony, full of so much pretending that Gansey had thought he would burst. But that had been different. That had been pretending that would lead to death, pretending that would never end unless it ended in death. This was pretending with an expiration date, pretending with a possibility of something more.

Gansey did not really mind this sort of pretending.

* * *

Minutes bled into hours, and Gansey wasn't sure he'd ever spent this long at 300 Fox Way without either leaving or getting kicked out before. Even ordering pizza for lunch had a certain vibrancy to it — all those colorful women ordering a colorful variety of toppings in combinations that sounded only vaguely edible to Gansey. After it was delivered, Gansey politely took a slice from each of the three varieties and then wandered out to the backyard. Surprisingly, there were no new deep gouges in the grass or holes in the fence. Gansey had expected the absurd things his friends had been doing to leave their mark on Blue's backyard, and now that they hadn't, he couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. It was hard, he thought, to leave a mark on a house that was already so sure of its identity.

"If I were you, I'd take the anchovies off of that slice before it's too late, man. Even Chainsaw refused to eat them."

Ronan sat down on the back steps next to Gansey, and Gansey tried his best not to glance over and observe his mental state. Instead, he shot him a rueful grin. "Is that what these rubbery triangles are supposed to be? I couldn't tell."

Ronan shrugged. "They smell like fish. Well, they smell like shit, but all fish smell like shit. And as far as I know, anchovies are the only fish that they put on pizza. Although — Calla _did_ order that one, so I wouldn't put anything past her."

Gansey offered up a better smile and pointedly flicked the anchovies off his pizza before taking a bite. He ate in silence — Ronan didn't have a plate in his hands, and Gansey hated not knowing if it was because he'd eaten fast or because he hadn't eaten at all — and then he set down his paper plate and tried to figure out how to broach the subject of Aglionby.

Before he could, Ronan inexplicably beat him to it. He had been eying Gansey's pizza-grease-laden fingers for the last few minutes, and as soon as Gansey set the plate down, Ronan handed him a napkin and blurted out, "About Aglionby."

Gansey gaped at him. "Did you just . . . bring up _school_? _Yourself_?"

Ronan scowled. "Asshole. I was just going to ask if you wanted a ride tomorrow, seeing as the Pig is going to be a useless pile of scrap metal until Parrish gets a chance to look at it, but if you're going to—"

"Wait. Are you . . . _going_ to school tomorrow?"

"Are _you_?"

"I . . . yeah."

"Then I am too. You don't have to make a big fucking deal out of it."

Out of all the ways Gansey had expected a conversation with Ronan about Aglionby to go, this hadn't been it. "But _why_?"

Ronan answered the question in the most Ronan way possible. "Why didn't you ever tell me that you were going to die?"

Gansey knew that he was outside, but he still felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. "Well. To be fair, I didn't tell anyone."

Ronan's perpetual scowl deepened. "I think that's probably _worse_ , Gansey. Why the _fuck_ wouldn't you tell us about it? Why would you keep shit like that to yourself?"

"Because — how the hell would I have brought it up? 'Hello, everyone. Now that Persephone's dead, it seems like a good time to tell you that I'm going to die too.' Yeah, that would have gone over well."

"Well, fine, but it's not like you had to mention it at fucking _Nino's_ or some shit like that. We're fucking roommates, Gansey. You could have told _me._ "

Gansey turned and examined him then. He couldn't help himself. Ronan was glaring at him with the kind of anger that meant he felt betrayed — and Gansey tried to, but he found that he couldn't blame him. "Ronan, you are the last person I would have told," he said finally. "But not," he continued, before Ronan could interrupt, "because I don't . . . I just didn't want you to have to deal with it until you had to."

Ronan made a sound like he was choking. "Until I _had_ to?"

Gansey tried very hard to keep his voice even. "Do I have to spell it out for you, Lynch? You were just getting to the point where I thought you could be okay, finally, without your dad. You got through junior year somehow, and you got the Barns back, and you were powerful and you were magic and you were actually _happy_ sometimes and — and then _Greenmantle_ showed up, and everything happened, and how could I have told you the truth then? I couldn't be the person who made things even _worse_ for you. That's why I—"

He cut himself off. _Maybe he won't notice, maybe he won't think I had anything else to say, maybe—_

"Why you what?" Ronan's eyes narrowed. "What the fuck did you do, Gansey?"

There was no point in keeping more secrets. "I talked to Child. I traded Monmouth for a diploma."

"But you don't need . . ." Ronan trailed off. He stared with Gansey with such open horror that the non-anchovy pizza shifted uncomfortably in Gansey's stomach. Ronan didn't show open _anything_. Not anymore. Which meant this was _bad._ Gansey braced himself for shouting, for unadulterated fury, for a string of painfully true accusations that would sting for weeks.

"Well."

Gansey hunched his shoulders.

"Good job, Gansey. Now I fucking _have_ to go back."

Gansey stared at him, startled. "What?"

"You couldn't have planned this better if you tried," Ronan scoffed. "I'm not going to let you lose Monmouth for a fucking piece of paper and a shitass graduation robe."

Gansey felt the world drop out from underneath him. He leaned against the side of 300 Fox Way and closed his eyes like it would help. It didn't. "That's not what I wanted," he said. It felt like Adam all over again — Adam's father, Adam losing hearing in one ear, Adam pressing charges. _It is the end of the world. It doesn't matter how you say it. It's what you wanted, in the end._ He felt sick. "Losing Monmouth wasn't supposed to matter. It wasn't supposed to hurt you. I just wanted you to have a choice."

Ronan shook his head. "I can't believe you. You think I care about whether I have a diploma or not? It's not like I'm going to go to college. I'm going to stay at the Barns, and I'm going to find a way to wake up Dad's animals, and I'm going to make it into a proper fucking farm, and the last time I checked, I don't need a fucking piece of paper from a fucking private school for that. You don't just get to _decide_ things like that for people, Gansey. You don't get to _decide_ what would have helped if you had actually died. Did you forget that I live at Monmouth too? That maybe it's a lot more important than a piece of shitty stationery? Jesus, Gansey. I can't believe—"

The sound of Gansey's cell phone cut Ronan off just before he was about to stand, just before he was about to storm off, just before Gansey would have had to worry about finding him again.

"Sorry," Gansey said quickly, fishing his phone out of his pocket. "Sorry, I can let it go to voicemail. I can—"

"No, take the call," Ronan said. "It's probably your parents, and they'll probably mobilize the entire state police force if you don't answer." Ronan muttered a string of creative cell-phone-related expletives under his breath then, but Gansey couldn't pay attention because he didn't want his parents mobilizing state police either. He coughed, lifted the phone to his ear, and then focused on being polite. The fact that the politeness took so much effort was probably a sign that he'd spent too much time around Ronan and Blue.

"Hello?"

"Dick."

Gansey frowned. " _Helen_?"

"There's something I didn't tell you yesterday." Her voice was even crisper on the phone, professional and in-control and powerful. "With you being missing and then being found and the way you left the house at the speed of light, I didn't get the chance."

Gansey winced. He wanted to apologize for that — for a lot of things — but he didn't have the energy. "What?"

"I talked to Child."

Gansey stiffened, his fingers clenching around the phone so he wouldn't drop it. Very carefully, he avoided looking Ronan in the eye. "What happened?"

"I destroyed him," she said frankly. "Brought up a whole list of reasons why that deal was incredibly irresponsible on his part and how he had no right to agree to such a major trade with a minor and also how it was illegal blackmail and I could easily destroy him in court while keeping you from appearing culpable in any way."

She paused, clearly waiting for a response, but all Gansey could think to say was, "Could you really?"

"Probably not," she said. "But Child didn't know that. Anyway, he backed off Monmouth."

Gansey exhaled slowly, closing his eyes again. The ground underneath him steadied a little. "Helen—"

"Don't thank me yet," Helen warned. "Child backing off means that the deal you made is void now. You can't get the angry one his diploma anymore."

Gansey imagined Ronan at the Barns, diploma-less and hard-working and happy. It wasn't a bad image. He didn't know why he'd once thought it was. "That's okay. That's good. I . . ." He cleared his throat. "Thank you very much, Helen. I'm sorry again for all the trouble."

He could practically hear her frown over the phone. "One day," she said finally, "I hope you'll stop thinking that you always have to be polite around me too. And maybe then you'll finally tell me the truth about what actually happened to you while you were missing."

Something swelled in Gansey's chest, hopeful and unexpected and as powerful as Helen's voice. "I hope so too," he said. Then he hung up.

Ronan was eyeing him again, less angrily than before. "Trouble in Gansey paradise?"

The thing in Gansey's chest burst, and he looked at Ronan and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Ronan narrowed his eyes and poked Gansey's shoulder. "Gansey. What the fuck. Are you okay?"

"That was Helen," Gansey explained, still laughing a little, even though he knew Ronan knew. "She talked to Child."

"Oh, _great_ ," Ronan spit. "I suppose she got me a college degree too?"

"No," he said cheerfully. "She cancelled the deal. You don't have to go back to Aglionby ever again."

Ronan blinked. "What the fuck?" he said again. "Since when have you sounded _happy_ about that?"

That, finally, sobered Gansey. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry for making you feel like you had to go."

"Shut up," Ronan said, looking away. "You didn't force me to do fucking anything."

"Then why did you tell me that you're going to school tomorrow?"

Ronan's fingers tensed around the leather bands on his wrist. "Because." His voice was furious and challenging and certain. "Do I have to spell it out for you? You were fucking _dead_ , Gansey, and you fucking did it for _me_ , out of all fucking people, and I didn't get a fucking say, and I wanted to show you that it wasn't a fucking waste."

Gansey stilled. " _Ronan_. Jesus Christ. You can't — you can't actually think—"

Ronan's words spilled out of his mouth in a hard line. Each vowel was clipped, every word precise. Gansey felt sick again. "You wouldn't have let Blue kiss you if I hadn't been in the middle of being fucking unmade. You can't sit there and tell me that it wasn't my fault."

Gansey took one painful, shuddering breath, and then he turned to fully face him and forced his voice to come out strong. There were a million things that he worried would break Ronan Lynch one day. He couldn't let this be one of them. "I would have done that for Blue or Adam or Henry or Helen or anyone," he said severely. "You are not allowed to blame yourself for what happened."

Ronan looked so tired. All the fight was gone from his voice when he said, "Maybe. But you actually did do it for me, in the end. So if you want me back at Aglionby, I'll go."

This felt important, so monumentally important. Gansey was terrified of ruining it. Of ruining Ronan, who had only recently stopped being ruined. "I want," he said carefully, "you to be happy. That's why I didn't tell you when I realized I was going to die. It was just after I realized that you had a chance to be happy again. I didn't want to be the reason that you weren't." He dug his fingers into the fabric of his khakis. "I'm sorry I made that deal with Child. It was stupid. I just wanted you to have something left."

Ronan stared at him. He stared for so long that Gansey thought he might not have said anything at all — that he might have imagined making his whole speech, and Ronan was still waiting to hear that Gansey wanted him to finish school. Then he said, "You're right. That's pretty fucking stupid, shithead."

Gansey grinned. "Ronan," he said, "don't go back to Aglionby if you don't fucking want to."

Ronan stared at him again, this time in astonishment. "All right," he said with raised eyebrows, like he was still asking permission. "I don't fucking want to."

"Good." Gansey clapped him on the shoulder. "You don't need it anyway." He thought about that for a moment. "None of us needs it, actually. But Adam wants it, and you need it even less than the rest of us."

Gansey didn't think he had ever seen Ronan's eyes so wide. It felt empowering, entertaining, and triumphant to surprise him. Usually Ronan was the one with the surprises. "Who are you, and what the fuck have you done with Gansey?"

"I figured it out a few weeks after I'd already made the deal with Child," Gansey admitted, waving his hands around somewhat foolishly. "It was dumb of me not to figure it out sooner. How could you need Aglionby? You have the Barns. You have dreams. You don't need anything else."

"No, that's not true. I need other things too." The look Ronan gave Gansey was so careful, so serious, that for a moment, Gansey was afraid that Ronan was going to get _sentimental_ , and then the world would probably end. But what came out of his mouth was, "I still need you to tell me I can drive the Pig, so I don't have to dream up another pair of keys every time I want to crash it."

It was maybe a sign of how wild the last few months had been that Ronan's words struck Gansey as amusing rather than insensitive. He threw back his head and laughed and laughed and laughed again, and after a moment, Ronan joined in, and nothing was right in the world, except this.

But that was fine. _This_ was an astonishing amount of rightness, more than Gansey could have wished for. And right now, sitting on the back porch of 300 Fox Way with an empty greasy plate on the ground beside him and Blue and Adam waiting somewhere behind him and Ronan Lynch laughing in front of him, it felt like enough.


End file.
